Japan: It's like a dream.

Morning all! Or, ohayo gozaimasu ^_^

6am from our hostel after our first (very early!) night. Managed to beat the weather and me, Emma and Antonia have reached TOKYO, Japan! When we landed we were greeted by beautiful winter weather- clear blue skies and very bright, warm sunlight. Really lovely change from the current drizzle and darkness from the UK... I only saw the sun in England once in the two weeks I was back from Fiji on Christmas day.

So far, Japan is really exciting and a has lots of things we expected and lots of things unexpected. Initial toilet experience - crazy electronic Japanese toilets! Even in our youth hostel the loos have heated seats (which was quite surprising) and about 12 different buttons which look terrifying and we're avoiding!People are extremely friendly and I'm really surprised at how far my broken Japanese is getting us. It's really, really fun getting to speak Japanese and I'm really glad People are responding! There's lots of English signage which is amazing as otherwise the trains and roads would be impossible- it's just huge here! However, it's interesting (and confusing) as only main roads are named. Other streets aren't named and buildings are given numbers according to when they were built, not ascending along the road. So, maps can be very confusing, but the plethora of 7/11 convenience stores, tiny family-run restaurants and shrines make navigating from landmarks a bit easier.

I'm aware we've only been here less than 24 hours, but we haven't got lost on the trains or roads yet!! As we got the train from Narita, where the airport is to Tokyo it was so amazing looking out the window. It's strange, it felt similar but not quite. There's squares of farmland like England and I guess the climate is the same, but dotted in-between the fields are houses built in Japanese style. The architecture of the domestic houses is really lovely and looks so archaic and old fashioned. We slowly saw the city build up into a metropolis as the train gathered ground and the in-between houses turned into cylindrical apartment buildings and the fields replaced by taller and taller buildings fronted with neon adverts. It was interesting to see Shinto cemeteries which would be in the towns and also, just seeing living Japan all around. On our train people were watching tv on their phones and outside on the roads would be lots of Toyotas and bicycles!

It's strange, after years of watching Japanese films and anime and reading manga and Japanese novels, the scenes around me didn't feel that foreign at all. In fact, I felt strangely at home. Even the sounds of the numerous level crossings were familiar (they feature very importantly in a great film that's a favourite of mine 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time'). I've been a Japanophile for more than 10 years, when I was 6 I first asked if we could go on holiday to Japan (!), and so being here feels a bit like a dream and a lot like the culmination to a massive achievement.... But to summarise 'Suki desu!' - I love it!

UK: Home

So... after 3 and a half months, a 42 hour journey I've finally been back at home for a week or so. Getting back into UK life has felt very weird and actually... very foreign! Reverse culture shock is a very scary thing and strangely worse than normal culture shock. Everything's so clean, everything's so dark (I haven't seen the sun yet at all here!!!), everything's SO COLD!!! It's strange how everything just works differently again and it does feel comparatively unfriendly and stressful compared to Fiji island life!

So far I've already rang and texted my friends and family in Fiji and popped a chocolate package in the post for them :) So, so, SO MANY photos to sort through (2000+) as well as Christmas and UK life getting back underway. The other day I met up with my school friends and it's relaxing that life's always the same with good friends, no matter where on earth you've been! Just to make sure they knew where I'd been, I wore a sulu (yes, in the SNOW!) when I went to meet them :)

There's definitely no place like home, but I didn't think going away and being on my own would give me so much to think about, so much more understanding of the world and so many friends who are now so far away. I never want to forget the memories and hope to bring together the island friendliness, the enthusiasm of my fellow volunteers and all the passion I had for life into my everyday life here. The world's a big place.... you just have to be there to see it!

What I've definitely learned from being right on the other side of the world is that the world is an absolutely incredible, beautiful and amazing place. The world is never a boring place, you just have to be in the right place to see it. In the morning in England when everyone's groggily waking up for the day to start, kids in Fiji and running around gathering friends together to go swimming for high tide and jumping into the ocean in the sunset. Fiji is a tiny country and I learnt so much from being there, the world is just an absolutely amazing, absolutely huge place. I don't think I could ever say life is boring again because I'll just imagine everything that's happening on the other side of the world.

From going away I've grown so much and really feel like a 'proper' adult now. It's strange being back and not being known as a teacher! But it's also relaxing not having to be so responsible anymore! I also definitely want to continue with volunteer work in England, I absolutely love it! I already volunteer with Guides and my local libraries in Berkshire, but doing the same thing abroad just makes me want to do more here and also take on new projects. I'm definitely planning on taking up regular volunteer work once I'm at Uni in London, hopefully working in a refugee center doing some conversational English work or maybe work with Shelter. I also can't wait to study Anthropology, I wrote an essay the other day on just a few of the many things I thought about whilst in Fiji.... voluntary essays for fun? Get me to Uni quick! So many questions to ask and so much I want to study and understand.

One day I'd love to go back to Fiji, who knows whether it'll be in 5 or 50 years but I've definitely made some truly awesome friends along the way and memories and experiences that no one can ever take from me. I was terrified I'd forget the life I had and all the things I did, but from being back this short time and just talking about it and remembering it all the time has made me think the experience really has become part of who I am. Fiji definitely wasn't a holiday, but it was an incredible experience that you had to work very hard to become part of, what you put in really gets given back to you. There were times I was stressed, times I was sad and also times were I was just incredibly happy, so content and couldn't imagine feeling the same anywhere else.

I'm happy to be back. Mostly because I know my new memories will never leave!

And I'll leave with a quote that I had in my mind when I left...

Journeys are measured in friends

Definitely true.

  

South Korea: "Au sa sega na via lako" (I don't want to go)

Well, the last week was emotional... and the day I left my village I don't think I'd ever felt so sad and flat whilst being in Fiji. It was very strange to see my rucksack and think that everything was in there, nothing was left in the my home and that the next few days would be spent in Nadi.... not Viro, Ovalau.

I left on the 9th with Miss Jessie from Uluibau, Moturiki and took a very rainy fibre boat journey to the mainland. From there we had a 3 buses and an 8 hour journey round Viti Levu back to Nadi where we met up with the other volunteers for a farewell. As well as making such great relationships in Fiji, I've made some incredible friends with the other volunteers and it feels so great that I can really say I have friends all over the world :) No trip to Australia will ever be a lonely one, not with my fellow island girls! A amusingly large part of our farewell consisted of checking for nits, an inevitable consequence of living and working with school kids for the past 3 months!

During the next few days in Nadi I saw a lot of friends off at the airport and also found quite a bit of satisfaction at getting the locals rate at the tourist places showing them my work visa and also by just being dressed up in my sulu jaba - I loved being able to say "No, no, I live here." and seeing the price drop! It was always fun meeting people from Ovalau (MY HOME!) and even getting to show off by speaking a bit of Lauan dialect (different to to the widely spoken Fijian dialect) which I learnt from living in Viro.

Fiji's an incredibly friendly place and I always felt like I could go and talk to anyone. In the departure lounge, the first time I was totally alone in Fiji I chatted to the shop staff about life in Viro which was really comforting.... especially as I found out these guys were the ones in charge of giving out free samples. I had my first taste of CHOCOLATE in 1/4 of the year and it was possibly one of my most amazing moments!!

On the plane it really hit me that I was leaving Fiji and I was glad to have my diary. I just consolidated my thoughts and remembered how scared and nervous I felt before I came... not knowing what awaited me, worried about who I was living with, what work in the school would be like and worrying about meeting the Australian volunteers. After I finished writing, I realised I'd written over a page of things starting with the sentance "I'll miss...." I really did have a wonderful time and experienced so many emotions over the whole trip. There's so much I'll miss though, I really feels like I have an entire life in Viro, Ovalau. But I feel happy, really happy that I did it all and now I'm so excited to be going home.... home!

20 hours in transit before my flight back to England, luckily the airport is rather snazzy and there's lots of recliners to sleep on! I also managed to leave the airport, it's dark and the city's an hour away so I went on a bus ride around the airport area before buying some exciting and mysterious (I've no idea what's in it!) Korean food from a convenience shop. It's cold here in South Korea, good practice for England. Very pleased that my passport got stamped here and I'm even more amused that it shows me entering and leaving Korea on the same day! Hopefully if I get up early tomorrow I can go on a morning temple tour before my flight. I'm finding Korean language incredibly hard to pronounce so I'm communicating with lots of smiles and thumbs up!

Moce!

Fiji: The End of Term

It's now hit December and school term finishes this Friday, after that I have my last week in Fiji before flying out from Nadi on the 13th December and arriving back in the UK on the 14th!

The last week has been completely crazy and busy! The joint Viro and Rukuruku Guide Camp went off, my library is finished and the school has been dolled up for prize giving and we're having a school picnic at a beach tomorrow! On Friday I'm going to a Fijian wedding the village (all the teachers were invited so the school is closing on Friday) and I've had a new sulu jamba (Fijian dress) made for the occasion!

Don't have time to write a long report on the guide camp (there's a lot to say, and stress wise from a teacher's point of view, I'm glad it's over!! It was a blast though!) as I want to get back to Fiji life, I'll elaborate on this post once I'm back in the UK :(

The pictures are of my girls swimming in the river after playing volleyball, the Rukuruku school girls going back to their village on a fibre boat through the mangroves after the camp (with their Lattitude volunteer teacher, Miss Kiarah), the camp programme (!) and a few pictures of my FINISHED LIBRARY!!! :D

The two last pictures are from when another volunteer and I went to Suva (the capital of Fiji). We went to visit another volunteer there who's working in the Hilton School Early Intervention Centre. It was really eye opening to see another, such different placement and we help out in the morning we were there. The Special School was a really beautiful, happy place and I absolutely loved the kids there!

Just a quick set of photos and info.... will write more when I'm in Nadi (!)

Moce!

Fiji: Busy, busy, busy!

Bula!
After an amazingly relaxing Diwali bank holiday weekend with the other volunteers it's back to school. We went to a tiny island beach called Cagali (pronouced THANG-A-LIE) and had a Diwali bonfire, white sand
and volleyball! But being the dedicated volunteers we are, all of us teachers brought some work to do! Miss Jessie from Uluibau was planning class 8 maths lessons, Miss Sarah was writing out the blueprint for annual Class 4 exams (see the top 2 photos!) and Miss Parry and I were stressing and planning for the weeks ahead. The volunteers from Vutikalulu building project were really appreciating electricity which they don't have at their placement! I was a bit worried I'd have to start teaching full time as a pregnant teacher was having to take extra leave and was possibly going to start her maternity leave a month early, however, the doctor said she was fine and it means I'm still free to finish making the library at Viro Primary.

Above are some progress shots. I've collected all the books the school has and have opened every single one, cleaned it, fixed it and rubbed out any pencil marks (and I tell you, EVERY SINGLE BOOK needed to be fixed). Unlike England, the classrooms are very open and there are insects everywhere. Almost every book had some sort of mite which would crawl out when I opened it and some books actually had nests
built inside them. It's taken me weeks to clean and fix every book, but I finished at the beginning of this week. I've rearranged two of the classrooms in the school so that I could get 2 bookshelves for the library and you can see I've been working on the from the photos above. The bookshelves ALSO have nests built in them which make them all very muddy and so first they were cleaned and rusty staples and pins were removed. I then papier mache'd the holes up before painting them so they're in much better condition! SO PLEASED when they were finished, I was very, very stressed over the weekend that I wouldn't finish and have to start teaching full time!

I've read and categorised all the 'easy reader' books and sorted them into 3 reading levels and am in town at the moment to get labels for every book laminated so they STAY organised on the shelf! The kids will pick them up and move them around otherwise and everyone will forget which book is in which level when I'm gone! The second shelf has had all the fixed and cleaned books shelved alphabetically and
looks a bit fuller thanks to an amazing book donation from The Children Of Fiji charity who came to visit me a few weeks ago. Also, I have to thank my Aunt who is a Librarian for donating a lot of excellent picture books which have been really loved by the kids. When I first came, I brought a lot of books to donate myself, but there was no library to put them.... so it's really satisfying to finally see my books shelved! As well as the books and the shevles, the actual library building is very old, over 20 years old and has had to withstand tropical cyclones and rain in its lifetime. The floor has A LOT of holes in it and I've been finding pieces of wood to cut and hammer down. I'm glad to say it's now safe to walk on the floor without fear your foot will drop through!

I'm now working on all the non-fiction books and also.... another Guide camp! I really didn't want the last camp I took the girls on to be their first and last after seeing how much they enjoyed it, so I've met up with Miss Kiarah in town, another Lattitude volunteer at the neighbouring school to organise a joint camp between Viro's Guides and Rukuruku's Guides. I love working with the Guides and last picture is me with Railala and Unaisi - I had a lady from the village come and teach the girls mat weaving and whilst they were doing it I also
taught them how to use my camera (they were excited to say the least!). The mat we're holding that says "Fiji 2010" is one that I wove a few weeks ago! I've also got the girls to write letters to my Guides in England, a Guide is a sister to all other Guides, no matter if it's the other side of the world!! They're really excited to hear
from their penpals :)

SO! BUSY BUSY BUSY! Not much left of my time in Fiji.... School term ends on December 3rd and then I fly out on Decmber 13th. Golly gosh I'm going to miss my island home, my friends and family here and all
the kids :(

Fiji: A Busy Week!

Ahhh the last week has been really busy but really interesting :)

I spent the weekend in the village - well Saturday was spent painting a bookshelf for the library in school, going on walks and hanging with other teachers and their kids in the school compound and on Sunday I spent my day in the village having lunch and tea at different people's houses after Church. I spoke to an amazingly hardworking woman who wakes up at 1:30am everyday to bake bread to sell to people in the village, cook and do all the laundry for her family because at 6:30 she takes the carrier truck into town to work at another job at the tuna cannery. I really enjoy going down into the village and talking to people, everyone has a story!

Late on Sunday evening, a visior (to stay!) arrived. We have a trainee teacher who's come to Viro School for her practical training and it's really great to have someone my age here! It's also nice to have someone here who's newer and fresher than me! Her family all came up with her and I helped serve tea and dinner to them as they were guests in the school compound and it was a great compliment when one her aunts asked me how long I'd been at Viro and I said "2 months" and she said "and so which school were you teaching at before?" - she told me she thought I'd been living here for around a year because of the way I acted, the language I was speaking and the clothes I was wearing! It was really nice and made me feel very at home. I know all the kids names, I know when they're about to be naughty ;) and I can speak enough Fijian to give them instructions. I now know all the etiquette of the home -not to sit with your legs up, not to point your feet at the Chief or the tanoa bowl, not stand up straight without saying "Tilou, tilou" and that it's normal dress to wear something ankle length.

Over this week I've been teaching classes 3 and 4 since their teacher has had to take some leave as she's pregnant. They're a great two classes and are very fun to teach! We've been diligently finishing maths problems in the morning, doing some english composition after recess before doing Fijian, science, sports and art and craft in the afternoon.For their Fijian lesson I had them get into groups and teach ME Fijian words on the topics I gave them since... well... it would be pretty interesting if I was teaching THEM Fijian. The picture above is the join venture of a health science class followed by an art and craft lesson.

The only downside is that my library hasn't been getting much attention and I'm praying I'll finish it up in time... Also, I gave the kids a maths class this morning and had to handwrite every test paper - which meant waking up at 6:00am to ensure they were finished in time!

Anywho, my the pick up truck back to my village is leaving soon, gotta rush! Hope everyone's well and HAPPY DIWALI (it's a bank holiday weekend here, yes!! Holiday time!! I'm going to the beach with some other volunteers! :D)

Fiji: So, What Do I Do All Day?

A little post about my daily routine in Viro.

I wake up around 6:30am every day and have breakfast at home, this is also the time I call England since with the time difference it's 7:30pm (I have to climb a small hill behind my house to get signal!). Breakfast is usually crackers and tea, but sometimes there's pancakes and Fijian dumplings depending on whether there's flour or oil in the house.

The lali starts to drum at 8am and all the kids have a tooth brushing drill where they brush their teeth together before spitting in a big ditch! The children start arriving to school from 7:30 and go to their classrooms to finish up any homework and just chat to each other. After tooth brushing drill the children have Devotion where they sing a few hymns in their classroom or the whole school gathers in the Dining Hall and the village preacher comes along to talk to the children. I love the Monday and Friday whole school devotions because the singing is so beautiful, the children all harmonise and although I can't understand most of the words, the sound is amazing!

After Devotion, lessons start and if a teacher isn't in school, I go and teach their class. Teachers not being available happens fairly regularly as the Head Teacher is often busy with other work, another teacher is pregnant and one is breast feeding. Also, transport on the island is very hit and miss and if a truck doesn't come round to our side of the island, a teacher has no way of getting back to the village after spending the weekend away or after an evening meeting at another school! If all the teachers are in school, I take individual slow readers for 30 minutes each and teach them to read. There aren't many resources and so if a child hasn't learn to read in Class 1, it's very hard for them to catch up or for teachers to have the time to teach them again. I play lots of word games. alphabet fun and go through easy books with the child. I brought children's alphabet flashcards which really come in handy and make learning much more fun!

After recess I take classes 7&8 for English. They're 12/13 year olds who are going into secondary school next year where all their lessons will be taught in English and so I'm trying my best elicit good english language from them and teach them as much english as possible. In the village, the kids don't really have any opportunity to practice their English as we're fairly rural and there are no tourists or other Fijian ethnic groups (who they would use english to communicate with). I really like planning their lessons and trying to make it as interesting as possible! The TEFL teaching course I went on previously really helped me with this. Although English is a major language here in Fiji, in rural schools on the outer islands (like ours) it isn't so widespread. However, all the children are going to boarding schools for secondary education on the main island where english is spoken first almost everywhere.

During lunchtime I read to all the children in the library and am currently just over halfway through Matilda by Roald Dahl. I don't know if all the children understand every word, but I think they enjoy hearing my voice since they do come back every day! I have a lot of fun reading to the kids and am probably enjoy getting to read the book more than them at times!

After lunchtime, I've devoted myself to the library. Viro School has a library, but it was little more than a room with a couple of books which were regularly used by the kids to throw at each other or draw in rather than read. The library would be wrecked if you left the door open and it was quite upsetting to see. The children in the village don't really have any books at home (save for the Bible) and so they haven't really been taught how to treat books or about reading. I brought a lot of kids books from England but was told by the other teacher to not leave them in the library otherwise they would get wrecked. I keep all these books in a big bag (I took about 30!) and let children who've finished their work early read them. The kids really enjoy reading these books since a lot of their reading books are published by the Ministry of Education here and are.... pretty boring to be frank! No witches, wizards, fairies, gallant princes or mermaids in any of their story books and so the books from the UK are really treasured.

What I also noticed when I arrived is that there are a lot books all around the school in every classroom! Enough books to fill a proper library! But they're scattered over the floor and mostly used for decoration (or as something for the kids to hit each other with). So, every afternoon I've been gathering all these books and moving them to the library, ready to sort them all into different reading levels (so I have to read them all too!) and make the library a really special places. It's becoming a big job and I'm starting to devote myself full time to the library and not take the slow readers in the morning. The next volunteer will hopefully have a great library to take the slow readers in next year and so I want to get the library done well as soon as possible!

After school I run Guides on a Wednesday, spend a lot of time making posters for the classrooms and work on the computer. The school received a donation of a computer but no one knows how to use it, so I'm also teaching the other adults and teachers how to turn it on and type up word documents.

My timetable's pretty flexible and sometimes I leave the library to take PE, read or teach songs to different classes (or even, take the kindergarten for an excursion to the beach!). It's a busy life in Viro (not so much Fiji time as I expected!) but it's very fun and rewarding. I just hope I can finish my library in time!

Fiji: Don't say "sunny" Fiji to me!

Currently pouring down with rain as it has been for the last 2 days and it doesn't look like it's going to stop! I hope it's faring a bit better back in England :)

I'm wearing 4 layers of clothes at the moment, even though it's still around 20 degrees. You can definitely say I'm (as an anthropologist might say) going native. I couldn't imagine sleeping with a blanket when I first came and now I have to sleep with one at night! I also wear a jumper first thing in the morning at school.... my blood's definitely turning a bit Fijian!

Fiji: A Guide Camp to Remember

Every week for the past month I've been coming into town to help plan Fiji's Girl Guide Centenary Camp with the other leaders on Ovalau Island. Over the weekend the camp finally happened and was the culmination of a lot of meetings where I didn't understand a lot of what was being said (fast Fijian discussions!), so I was a bit apprehensive at first(!), but the camp turned out to be a spectacular event which I'm so, so pleased I could take my girls to.

This is the biggest Girl Guide Camp to ever happen in Fiji and girls battled through severe flooding in Suva and travelled for hours from many other islands to get to Levuka, Ovalau. It's been a very exciting experience for the whole of Fiji and girls have been on the radio talking about their journeys to the camp.

On the first night of the camp myself and the other Lattitude volunteers on Ovalau and Moturiki were invited to the VIP Dinner with the British High Commissioner (His Excellency), the invited guest speaker for the camp. It was such an exciting evening and very, very cool to be invited to a.... diplomatic dinner! Drinks were on Her Majesty and I was able to eat pasta for the first time in a month (with lobster and chicken also on the table!). I can't imagine me having that opportunity anywhere else but Fiji!

Saturday started with a very early wake up call before going on a march around the colonial town of Levuka. After this there was another ceremony and speeches from Fiji's Chief Guide, The British High Commissioner and other important officials. After this, there was some traditional Fijian entertainment before a talent display from the girls. I'm really proud of my girls who put on a play on how Guides began, which included them dressing up as Boy Scouts! My girls have been practicing dances (mekes) and this play for the past few weeks almost every day after school. I'm really proud of them and they did brilliantly in front of all the crowds.

It was my job to organise all the games for the camp.... games for 300 girls from across Fiji for 2 hours! This was the part of the camp I was most stressed about - gathering equipment, leaders to run the games, teaching the leaders the games, putting the girls into groups, timing the games... etc etc.! But the games went brilliantly which made me so so happy! Ten stations were set up and the girls rotated around the field to try out each new game, with active games interspersed with more relaxed games. At my games station I taught the girls some silly camp songs from the UK and it was so great for me to wander around the camp and hear snippets of my songs being sang by all these girls.

At the closing ceremony I was asked to get the girls to sing the song I taught them again and it was such an amazing experience having 400 girls and leaders singing "It was a crocodile...." at you at the top of their voices in Fiji. Another amazing thing is that I was asked to sit next to Fiji's Chief Guide during the closing ceremony which is such a great honour and a guiding experience I won't forget!

I'm so glad I could celebrate 100 Years of Girl Guides in such a special place, what an experience! I hope I can come back for another of Fiji's Girl Guide Camps in the future and I hope my girls are leaders and rangers there by that time.

After the camp ended and the girls from other islands had left to get the ferry, I got a text from a friend I'd made during the camp. She said the whole ferry was singing the song I taught them. I think you can imagine the smile that broke out on my lips!

Fiji: Class 7 & 8 Learn About Earthquakes

Here's a little film from one of my more interesting lesson plans!

They had to do a big long comprehension on earthquakes from their textbook and I promised them we could make a little film if they all finished in time and worked well. Well, I hope you enjoy the result! :)

Fiji: A Weekend in Viro

Since there appears to be a tropical rainstorm going on outside.... I think I might sit in this cosy internet cafe for a little bit longer!

As a teacher I'm working from 7:30 - 4pm everyday and I get the weekends off. Here's a little bit about my weekend off in my village.

Saturday

A lie in! Eee! I slept in till 7:30 which is incredibly exciting since it seems near impossible to wake up any later here. There's cocks crowing, kids running about and the temperature starts to rise pretty quickly. Spend the morning with the family; playing with baby Katie (named after the previous volunteer), 4 year old Gauna (pronounced ng-ow-na) and the lovely 7 year old (and very grown up!) Perina. The headmaster has taken a boat to Suva, the capital of Fiji to go and buy food supplies and so it's just us girls at home. Go and visit Miss Evi, the teacher who lives next door to us to have tea and play with her baby, Mere who is 2 months old (can everyone say "awwww!").

It's fun to relax, chat and listen to the radio. In Fiji, everyone goes into everyone's houses and is very welcome. Whilst sitting in Miss Evi's house I meet a lot of the kids from school who are drifting in and out, grabbing a biscuit and playing with the baby before leaving. It's really lovely how all the doors are left open and the whole village feels like one big house. Food passes so freely between people and whilst I was sitting outside someone's house talking to them I was given a fish to take to for my dinner and another time I was given a papaya as I was walking down the road!

Afterwards, I go back into to school to continue making some phonics posters for classes 1 and 2 (-ay and -ack). It's much easier to do these after school or in the weekend since school days are busy and I can be working with the children instead. There's a computer and printer in the school that was a donation from Australia, however no one knows how to use it. I've been teaching my host mother, Atila, how to start up a computer, type documents and hopefully by the time I leave, she can be writing out letters for the school! After making my posters I give Atila a computer lesson for as long as baby Katie remains sleeping!

By this time it's late afternoon and one of the girls from class 8, Daiana invites me to go for a walk. Daina, Lose and Perina all come along with me and we walk up the mountain along the river. When we had no water I went to the river to bathe, but walking further up, the river gets deeper and clearer and it's like one great big freshwater swimming pool! So many beautiful swimming spots. All the girls jump in, but seeing as I'm in an ankle length skirt (a sulu) I think it's better I don't! As we walk back... we come to the original diving spot... and with a bit of coaxing "LADE LADE!" or "JUMP JUMP" from the girls... I think whatever! I'm not in Fiji to come and observe and jump right in :)

After this, they tell me tide is high on the beach and so we go swimming in the sea too. It's such a beautiful, amazing experience having all my kids from school splashing around me and seeing the village from the sea. Everyone just dives in to the water fully clothed since you dry out quickly enough and women are allowed to wear long shorts whilst swimming. The girls from my Guide group come around me in the sea and start singing a song I taught them and doing all the actions in the water! They also teach me to shout... "AU TALEI TIKO VITI!" or "I LOVE FIJI". Which is very, very true :)

Sunday

The morning starts with my family mkaing a lovo or earth oven. A big hole is dug in the ground and filled with stones. Then a fire is set and burns to make the rocks hot for a 2 or 3 hours. After this the ash is scraped off and parcels of food wrapped in banana leaves are placed on the stones to cook and covered with coconut leaves for another few hours. It fun to watch the lovo being made and fallen coconuts being scraped to put into the food.

At 9:30 I hop along to the village (which is just down the road) to go to church. I go to Miss Raijeli, the kindergarten teacher's house so that I can walk to church with her. We sit with the choir since she sings with them and the sermon begins. It's all in Fijian and so I can't really understand anything.... but the choir are amazing! Sitting with them is brilliant and they let me sing with them since I can read Fijian. Everyone harmonises beautifully and the sound is so strong. The ladies next to me seem very suprised I sing too, but keep saying "vinaka na sere" to me, which means "thank you for singing". After church finishes, I'm invited back to the afternoon service and to the join in the the choir competition they're having!

Back at home we get to eat the lovo which is delicious and sit outside! Have another computer lesson with Atila and plan my English lessons for the next week before going back to church in the afternoon. This time I turn up on my own and get invited to sit back with the choir again! The Sunday School, Youth Choir, Mother's Choir and Father's Choir all then compete in front of the pastor in a competition.... and I end up singing with every choir except the Father's Choir! I've officially joined the church choir in Viro Methodist Church now which is brilliant since it's my favourite part of church here.

The rain's stopped now so I might venture out to the post office. Au talei tiko Viti :)

Moce!

(Mo-thay meaning good bye)

Fiji: Viro's Guides

Before I came to Ovalau Island I went to the the Girlguiding HQ in Suva. I met the two lovely ladies who work there and got to have a nose around Guiding HQ for the Pacific Islands! I've been involved with Guiding since I was 5 in the UK and so it was one of the best things every for me to know that I had Guiding friends in Fiji too.

There's a Guide Law that says: "A Guide is a sister to all other Guides"

I think it's definitely true since I've come all the way to the other side of the world and it definitely does feel like being back with a family! Tai and Mere were really welcoming and when I arrived, they sat me down to tell me all about Guiding in Fiji.

Me with Tai and Mere

Young girls sewing the Guide/Brownie uniforms- all handmade at the HQ!

When I arrived at Viro Primary School I took over the Guides (there were only 2 of them) and Brownies. Since I arrived there are now 9 Guides and the Brownies have meetings with a separate leader meaning the older girls can do some more suitable activities!

Today I'm in Levuka waiting to go for a meeting at another school for all the Guide Leaders. Last week was the fist meeting to plan the Girl Guide Centenary Camp (Celebration of 100 years of Girl Guides) which is happening in Levuka, Ovalau (the place of the first Girl Guide group in Fiji) and I was very kindly asked to help plan it! Kiarah (another Lattitude Volunteer who is at Rukuruku) and I will be planning the cooperative games for the camp on Saturday afternoon and so we're hoping numbers are confirmed soon so we know which games to organise! Today I'm going back to plan some more, confirm numbers and pay for myself - all very exciting!

I was a bit bummed earlier this year since I couldn't go to the UK Centenary Camp since I was saving money to go to Fiji.... what brilliant luck that I'm in Fiji for THEIR Centenary Camp! I'm really proud of my girls who are currently practicing a play to perform at the camp as part of a talent show on the Saturday night. For all of them it's their first ever school trip, let alone camp so I feel very lucky to be the one taking them away.

Fiji: Levuka Town

I've been at my placement in Viro Village for 4 days now and have just come up to town this weekend to drop off some papers, buy some supplies (toilet roll, Fijian style blouses) and use the internet.

I woke up at 5am this morning so I could get the carrier truck which picks people up any time from 6-7am outside the village. I'd been up till midnight the day before as I had the kava ceremony after presenting my sevusevu to officially indoctrinate me into the village so I'm glad I managed to wake up! Midway through the journey the truck broke down and wouldn't start up again. It would've been about 30 minutes to walk to town from where we stopped so I was happy to just walk there, but I soon realised all the people getting out the truck weren't getting out to walk, but to push the truck forward to get it going! I jumped back on and got to town pretty soon and found myself fmiling the whole way. My Fijian sister, Perina asked me why I was laughing and I told her that I couldn't ever imagine everyone pushing the truck and then just jumping back on so quickly back in England! No one even said a word, it was so matter of fact when people just pushing away and then running to jump back on!

Pushing the truck back onto the road

Viro Village is really lovely. I'm living on the school compound with the head teacher's family and went down to the village for the first time yesterday. It was amazing to hear children from all the houses shouting "Miss Natalie!" as I walked past :) Viro Village is right by the ocean and it was absolutely breathtaking to watch children from the school playing on a bili bili sillhouted aganist the sunset.

Everyone is really lovely and I've been invited to come into so many people's homes! After the kava ceremony, I was told that I had become a member of the village whilst I am in Fiji. I've been told to tell people who ask that I come from Viro Village. Much like a home is for a family, in Fiji, the whole village is like a house and I'm now allowed to enter anywhere as a member of the family. People are really generous and I've really been enjoying the food! Almost everything I've eaten has been grown in the village itself or fished/foraged from nearby.

Viro Primary has about 60 pupils from kindergarten (kindy) to age 13. The dining hall and teacher's accomodation (which I am staying in) were built with grants from the EU and are really nice, modern buildings. The classrooms are much older, but the teachers have decorated them with the resources they have really nicely and so the whole school is a very nice place to be. Each day, a boy drums on the lali which is like the school bell and the children go to their classrooms. So far, I've done some reading work with the kindergarten and classes 1, 2, 3 and 4. I also observed a Fijian lesson but couldn't really help much! The books I've brought over from England have been really loved already! Whenever I'm holding the bag of them children stop me and ask me to read to them or ask if they can read the books to me. Next week I'm hoping to start doing reading - I brought some Roald Dahl books and will be reading a chapter each day at lunchtime to any children who want to come and listen. The last time I started reading to 3 children in an empty classroom at recess, about 20 more appeared by the time the story had finished!
 

 

VPS - Viro Primary School

Perina in front of the library

 

Perina in the school library

 

Dan in Class 3 and 4

Classes 1 and 2

Fiji: Suva

Back Row: Hannah (Hilton Special School), Erin (Wainunu Bay, Vanua Levu),  Micheal (Vutikalulu Centre), Jamie (Vutikalulu Centre), Oliver (Vutikalulu Centre)

Middle Row: Ollie (Wainunu Bay), Sarah (Nasavuki, Motoriki Island), Bella (Hilton Special School), Tess (Visoto, Ovalau Isand, Zarli (Sigatoka Special School), Jana (Nadi Kingergarten), Kiarah (Rukuruku, Ovalau Island)

Front Row: Me! (Viro, Ovalau), Phillipa (Vutikalulu Centre), Jessie (Ulimbau, Motoriki Island)

With David Kirton, our Lattitude National Representative in Fiji and our Fijian friends from Nadi

In the last update, our orientation hadn't even begun and we were waiting for people to fly in. I was tired, feeling slightly overwhelmed and very very nervous! Since then all our Australian friends (yes, definitely friends!) have come, the orientation has finished and I'm now in Suva, the capital of Fiji which is on the other side of the island. To try and cram in everything I've learned in the last few days into one blog post would be a mammoth task so I'll give you a taste of what we've done...

On the first day of the orientation we were mixed up and put into groups and sent into to Nadi to gather information to complete a list of questions and give a presentation on it. My group had shopping and food and so one of the things we did was to go into the market with our local Fijian guide to find out as much as we could about the food we'd be eating for the next 3 months! Cassava, dalo, bele, rourou, soursop, kava, kai and nama were all pretty foreign foods to start with, but by the end we knew how much we should expect to pay for a 'heap' of each and a pretty good idea of how they would be best cooked. Everyone was wonderfully friendly and we met a lady called Nassi and her adorable daughter Anna who were selling dalo, they took us round the market and pointed out all the foods we were looking to find and told us how she liked to cook them. It feels like that in Fiji, all you need to do is smile and the world is your oyster!

Other groups covered topics such as Health, Communication, Insects and Clothing & Language. The Health group went into Nadi Hospital to talk to doctors and nurses about common ailments for volunteers whilst the Communications group got to go into the sorting office in the town post office to talk about how mail is sent in Fiji and then find out bus and ferry fares!

All the group presentations were followed by a lot of note taking on Fijian customs and how to dress modestly, enter a village properly and how to drink kava. That evening, we went to a local village to join a family (who were related to David, our national representative for Lattitude Global Volunteering in Fiji) for a dinner of traditional Fijian foods and kava. Being relatives of David meant that if we could practice customs and make all of our mistakes sooner, in the comfort of friends, rather than later. Drinking Kava is a traditional Fijian ceremony and done on many occasions. There were a lot of rules to remember (clapping, being silent, speaking at certain times), but after a few rounds it all started to sink in! The first bilo of kava was a bit nerve wracking as it worked its way round the circle towards me - pungent and slightly gritty- But I'm starting to like it after having it 3 nights in a row!

In the other days of the orientation we took in a lot of information - what to do if a cyclone hits, how to know if we have Beakbone fever, when to get checked for Elephantiasis, how to be a good teacher...... etc. etc.! I did a bit of practice teaching and had to teach an economics lesson to the rest of the group (stretching us a bit further since making us teacher primary school english to each other might've been boring!) which was especially fun with the addition of Usborne kids flashcards to represent economic and free goods.

We bonded as a group during all the sessions and I've already had to bid goodbye to almost half the group! Jana placed in Nadi Nursery; Zarli placed in Sigatoka Special School; Jamie, Oliver, Micheal and Phillipa placed at the Vutikalulu Project and Hannah & Bella placed at Suva's Early Intervention Centre. The rest of us who are going to the outer islands are in Suva for the day before catching ferries tomorrow to get us to Vanua Levu, Motoriki and (my placement!) Ovalau. I registered as a teacher with the Ministry of Education this morning and then we spent some time shopping to stock up supplies before going to our rural placements (Erin and Ollie will be 9 hours from the nearest town!).

Here's a few photos, I've taken 350 pictures already!

 Rourou leaves at Nadi Market

Dalo

Girls selling breadfruit

Buying our Sulus